Mike Balog, Zonoff CTO Fills in for Bob Cooper
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Walnut St. Labs Announces Areshay, an Android App To Access All Your Documents
WEST CHESTER, PA – Areshay, a file-sharing app that allows users to access all of their personal and enterprise documents together in one app, is being developed at Walnut St. Labs, a technology incubator and innovation consultancy in West Chester PA.
The first public beta for Areshay (pig latin for “Share”) will be available on the Google Play store in Q3 2014. The app currently supports integration with Sharepoint, Salesforce, Box and Dropbox with many more to follow in the coming months.
“Mobile professionals have cloud storage accounts across different services, and enterprise level accounts have traditionally been trapped behind a corporate firewall. When you first use Areshay, it’s a very liberating experience – like a big family reunion for all of your files.” said founder, Chris Dima.
Areshay is being developed in partnership with Philadelphia, PA based Point.io and their founder, Andrew Schwabe. Point.io is a “Modern Middleware” platform that provides the power to share documents with absolute control and security.
“Areshay is addressing a void in the market by providing Android users with access to Enterprise documents and SaaS services,” Point.io’s CEO Ron Rock said. “Combined with the benefits of the Point.io platform, Areshay complements the needs of US enterprises, while opening new opportunities in European and Asian markets where there is a large adoption of Android for business.”
For more on Areshay
Follow on Twitter @AreshayApp
About Point.io
Point.io is a Patent Pending, API-as-a-Service Platform that enables organizations to monetize existing digital assets and join the API Economy. Using the Point.io API products, technology executives can dramatically reduce development time for API-enabled applications, and therefore realize significant cost savings and faster time to market. Business leaders can explore new business models that leverage existing information assets to generate new revenue while resting assured that data access patterns comply with corporate policy. Point.io authenticates every access request and monitors all activity to make compliance easy. Point.io’s technology delivers APIdoc™ to expose file-based assets and APIflow™ to externalize core business processes through standard APIs that can be used in web, mobile, and social applications that meet the growing demands of mobile stakeholders.
For more on Point.io.
Follow @Point_io
Connect on Linkedin
About Walnut St. Labs
Walnut St. Labs is an early stage startup incubator and innovation consultancy that works with startups to build an MVP (minimal viable product) and bring it to market quickly. The lab also offers affordable co-working space and weekly events for startups and entrepreneurs.
For more about Walnut St. Labs visit our site.
Contact Information
For media inquiries, contact:
Chris Dima
267-258-1520
chris@walnutstlabs.com
Juliana Reyes Shedding Light on the Philly Tech Scene
Sharing Lessons from Technical.ly Philly
“Technical.ly Philly approached me when they heard I was looking for a job. And I didn’t know anything about the Philly tech scene. I didn’t actually even really know that existed. So, I was just thrown right into it”
“We (at Technically Philly) cover the Philly tech scene very very closely, the city and the greater Philly tech scene. Really closely. It’s not like, say the Inquirer business section. They’ll do a story about a company only when that company is going public or when something really big is happening. We’ll cover it from the beginning, and every stage in between.”
“When Walnut St. Labs opened up I wrote a story about it. I asked him (Chris Dima) to keep me posted throughout the writing of the story. I wanted to know everything that happened after that. I wanted to know if they got a grant, or if a new company was here, and what their upcoming events were. And its that sort of community-based reporting, which we really pride ourselves on.”
“What I really care about is meeting with people. Meeting people that work in startups, meeting people that work in government, or meeting people who teach STEM. Its all about the people behind these business. Its cool and its impressive if your making a lot of money or raising venture funding, but what I find really interesting about it is that human factor. Its not just, ‘look at what these smart people are doing, in terms of money!’, its also about personality, that human side of things.”
“We are so in the community. I see people at events and we talk all the time, and we have a good relationship with people, which can sometimes make it hard to ask the tougher questions. So, when I hear about a startup laying off a bunch of its employees, it can be really difficult to ask the CEO, ‘What’s up?, What’s going on here?’… That’s been one of my struggles over the past two years, finding a good balance.”
“Another big lesson I learned at this job is about not being afraid to look stupid. I was talking to one of the guys in SEPTA’s tech department … and I had to admit to him that I had know idea what he was talking about and he had to explain all of it to me. So, we talked for two hours and he drew me a diagram. And yet, it was one of the most fun stories I did, because he explained it to me and I learned it. I could explain it to people in a way that was actually useful to other people because this was something that city government was doing to make their services better, through the use technology”
“And, it took a certain amount of lowering my pride to admit and say ‘I don’t know what your talking about. Can you explain it to me?’. Its been a really big learning experience for me to accept that I might not know a lot, but can get it and people will explain it me. People will explain it to you, to anyone, if you just ask! I think people can be really generous with their knowledge.”
“The last thing that I’ve been thinking about a lot is that its not, I don’t know how to say this, but its not about the glory. Its hard to say that when a bunch of you guys are here to see me speak. Or when Im at a Philly Tech Week event and people are coming up to me and saying that they recognize my photo. I always feel really special…”
“And I think a lot of journalists have this idea that you wanna be that Woodward and Bernstein, you have to be muckraking and holding people accountable, which I think we do, but we also do a lot of other stuff. I looked to that (idea) and I thought I had to write all these controversial stories in order to make in an impact… But I write small pieces of new called Startup Roundups that are equally impactful. I get so many emails from people that the Startup Roundups is really important to them because it keeps them up to date and knowledge.”
“I changed the way i look at what a good journalist is. Its not just someone who can take down the president. It can be someone who follows smallest movements of the community and if that means something to people, and it seems like it does (in the Philly area), then it can be just as powerful and impactful.”
I saw a friend at a festival and he introduced me to another friend of his, and he said “You work at Technically? Your OUR reporter?” I don’t why, but hearing him say that really struck something in me. It reminded me, ‘Yes, I am YOUR reporter!’ That is my job, that is what I do!
Chris Burns shares knowledge on Intern U
“I’m the richest guy you ever met in your life,” Chris Burns, founder of Intern U said today. “I have four great kids and a great wife. I just might measure wealth differently than you do.”
Burns’ philosophy of the 3 C’s — Take care of the Customer, take care of the Company, and the Cash will come, was at the core his message. “At the end of the day, it’s about the line at your funeral not about how much money you made.”
But with Intern U already established at 86 universities and colleges and with a commitment to innovation and adaptation, it seems Burns is doing okay.
He insists that it isn’t about the paycheck, though. “You have to make sure that you are making a difference in the world.”
Burns does offer some advice to business owners and startups: “If you have a good idea, don’t bake it too much. At Intern U, we put all the ingredients together, but before we put it in the oven we go to clients and say, “would you buy this?” If they say yes, then we run with it. But first, we let our clients put their fingerprints on it. And then they enjoy the meal even more.”
Mike Krupit Shares Philly Startup Insights & Demos IntroNet
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“The guys at Walnut St. Labs are viscous on Social Media”
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Michael Raber Releases ClearCache & ControllerContext
Raber Indoctrinates the NightOwls Gang
Michael Raber joined us for a special edition of Night Owls last week. He talked to us about his new product, ClearCache and his plans to simplify configuration and managing of caching layers.
I realize the title sounds a bit too intense or serious to be a fitting description of the fun that we had learning and discussing caching layers, iOS apps and open sourcing, but I thought it sounded catchy. Truth is, most of the people in the room were unaware of the problems relating caching layers before Mike presented his new products, so his talk did have a educative or enlightening quality to it.
Although it was one of the more quantitative talks we’ve hosted thus far, it certainly expanded our technical understanding for those of us who were not familiar with Mike’s reasons for designing ClearCache and ControllerContext. As you can see from the first picture, Brad Miller, the most technically literate out of the bunch, is smiling and the rest of us are recognizably perplexed. Despite the visual evidence that we appeared to be considering defenestration, it was a really cool opportunity to learn about things that we tend to take for granted otherwise.
Mobile app developers spend a lot of time writing code to access remote data and assets (i.e. images) used within apps. ClearCache aims to simplify the configuring and managing of caching layers within the app.
He also released ControllerContext, which solves the problem of passing data back and forth between iOS view controllers. The ControllerContext object manages the state between view controllers, reducing the boilerplate code necessary to wire screens together.
The state of the art today for passing data between view controllers is to create properties or setters on the next view controller to display and to use the delegate pattern for passing data back to the originating view controller.
The ControllerContext object gives you this power and control for passing data back and forth between view controllers.The magic behind the ControllerContext is the combination of storing key/object pairs of data with the ability to control the scope of the data.
All and all, it was a really fun night of learning new things and meeting new people, which is what Night Owls is all about!
Beah Burger-Lenehan left the Googleplex for Philly Startup Scene
“Stuff I learned at the Googleplex”
Google is obviously a cool place to work. They don’t adhere to organizational conventions, in fact, they openly deviate from those norms in order to cultivate their own. So, What is it like to actually work at a place like google? Well, Beah worked there for five years, and from her accounts it seems like a lot of the idiosyncrasies you hear about google are true.
After working at a place known for such raw creativity and innovation, she brought her learnings from San Francisco and New York to TicketLeap. Beah was kind enough to extend these insights to Walnut St Labs, in hopes that we could continue to grow paradigmatically.
Advice on experimental approach:
“Shoot first, ask questions later. Move fast, break stuff. Take moonshots!”
“If you buy this premise at all, then its our job as startup leaders to bring that type of culture here (Walnut St. Labs), to take the not so secret sauce, to take the ingredients, and cook it everyday, eat it everyday, serve it everyday.”
“Don’t take instructions, take Goals. Which is not a terribly articulate way to say that the end point matters and one shouldn’t get caught up in the process or the steps it takes to get there.”
Anecdote:
“Ian (at google) said, ‘it’s your job to make DFP (google product) successful in the market, any questions?’. And I was kind of amazed and I scratched my head, left the room, and thought ‘Oh Shit! I have to make DPF successful in the market’. And it was a bit daunting, but is was also quite liberating, because I wasn’t hung up about executing against a task list, or running a process. I was giving my all to make this thing successful!”
Advice on leadership:
“Thing number two that I learned, and that I sorta was immersed in at google was don’t revere authority. Maybe it should be don’t revere authority too much, but probably just don’t revere authority.”
Beah’s experience:
“I remember my first performance review with him (pretty senior guy: Tom), he gave me some good feedback, and we got the areas of development, the old AFD’s. And I think my only real, substantial area for development was he said I needed to push back more, I needed to argue harder, I needed to disagree with him more. Maybe its seems like an obvious thing that you should have a point of view and disagree with people regardless of somebody’s title… but its a easy thing to forget when your sitting in a room with somebody who could be you boss’s boss’s boss.”
“You might think that you should just prop up their ego, but if they’re a good manager, that not what they want! They dont need their ego propped up, they need insights, they need contrary opinions. I thought it was pretty cool that Tom was not just saying it, he was codifying it in my performance review!”
On Work Relationships:
“Employee relationships, with the company, with each other shouldn’t feel transactional. There’s this guy Dan Ariely… wrote a book called predictably irrational about humans doing predictably irrational things, so like programmatic irrationality.”
Example from Predictably Irrational
“Humans are more likely to do work, more likely to do favors out of some kind of social contract then they are when paid, its bit more complicated than that, it depends on the thing and the amount being paid. But, he points out that there are two worlds … Market Norms and Social Norms.”
“These worlds of Market Norms and Social Norms cant exist together. You have to really be bought in and trust that you are living in a world of social norms. And Its hard for employers to do this because that basic premise is that you pay someone for their work. I don’t feel like anyone does it better than google. you really feel like your in a world of social norms. I felt trusted. I felt valued. Everything is honor system, sick days are honor system and people didn’t abuse it.”
On Gran Dios Ideas:
“No Big idea should ever be written off.”
On growth: Big ideas @google: “At the time that it (idea of the self-driving car) was announced , it felt like a late April Fool’s joke or something. But now, self-driving cars are starting to feel normal now, a couple years later! But it took someone in a room ten years before it could feel normal to say ‘what if we could made these things that could actually drive themselves?’… At google it wasn’t a culture where you laughed at these ideas.(Instead) you said “yeah yeah, maybe we could do it this way!”
“We would get these emails talking about these crazy ideas like once a month, you can know that people are working on self -driving cars but to have it thrust on you culturally is valuable. It reminds people to get excited about big tricky ideas”
If your not pushing back, push forward and push forward with all your might.
“Either your arguing or your pulling as hard as you can in the direction we are pulling. It was well articulated by Larry (@google) and its huge because startups are low probability ventures. Its very very hard to succeed. Whether you have x smart brains in your company, whether its 3 people or 20,000 people, in the case of google … you need all of those brains pulling in the same direction.”
“You cant afford to have employee to not be raising the flag if something was missed, you can have them just respecting authority and not disagreeing.I think it is often the difference between success and failure for a startup.”
Thanks for your interest. The full WSL SUMU is available on our Youtube Channel.
(Photos by Jehrin Flanik)
Weekly Startup Meetup vignette
(by Mike Luttermoser)
We Have a New Advisor to the Lab!
New Advisor: Terry Kerwin, Attorney at Fox Rothschild
We are excited to welcome Terry Kerwin as an advisor for Walnut St. Labs.
Terry is a business attorney who works with clients across a range of industries. He regularly advises start-up, emerging growth and middle market businesses on corporate matters from formation to exit, including entity structure, governance issues, intellectual property protection and transfer, contract preparation and review, corporate finance (including angel, private equity and venture capital transactions), and mergers and acquisitions.
He is a member of Fox Rothschild’s Technology & Venture Finance Practice Group and a founding member of its Nonprofit Organizations Practice Group.
Terry serves as a member of the Steering Committee and Early Stage Company Selection Committee for the 2013 IMPACT Venture Summit hosted by the Greater Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technology (PACT), and annually takes part in Early Stage East and ACG’s M&A East, as well as DreamIt Ventures’ Philadelphia-based business incubator program.
He has a variety of competencies that are invaluable to us. We look forward to collaborating and growing rapidly together. This is the beginning of a long and meaningful relationship.
i2n Board Members to Check Out the Lab
i2n Board Member and Companies Plugged into our Framework
Wednesday was an important day for us. Ideas x Innovation Network (i2n) came to visit and they brought some 40+ friends with them.
The Ideas x Innovation Network (i2n) is a Chester County Economic Development Council (CCEDC) program.
“Its mission is to support emerging growth businesses throughout their entire life cycle by leveraging the assets of our academic institutions and our partners to create a network of physical and virtual resources. Entrepreneurs are strategically connected with established professionals whose experience and knowledge become pivotal stops on an emerging company’s roadmap toward success.”
Simply put, they are looking to invest in organizations that will attract and retain younger professionals to live and work in Chester County.
When Chris and Kevin mentioned to us that the i2n wanted to cater an event at the Lab we were overjoyed. Seeing the food being brought in I thought, “Wow, this must be a legitimate gathering of people of honor and prestige, just look at all of the club sandwiches and finger food!”
But Seriously, our team is so personally invested in every nook and cranny of the place that we jump at the chance to share it with other people. It doesn’t matter if your confused, curious, or can fully appreciate our mission statement, values and culture, we’re excited to elucidate you regardless. We’re doing all that we can to stimulate the local economy and bring the West Chester area into the 21 century by creating a hub for the preexisting tech community to collaborate and create.
Chris was asked to share a couple thoughts before the networking began. He pointed to our seemingly invisible dry-erase board and explained our overall progression. Its been a roller coaster, lots of ups and down. Some of them were more unexpected or celebrated than others, but it’s all part of our beautiful growing process. We’ve has recently been building to something big and i2n has been a part of it!
As our founder, Chris has carried the brunt of the comprehensive responsibility and work hours its taken to bring WSL to our current standing. It was vindicating to see him explain the process we’ve been through the past five months, leading up our micro-grant funding provided by the CCEDC. Its inspiring to see that his resiliency, courage and faith have propelled our space forward, despite considerable odds.
It was great to catch up with some people that we hadn’t seen for a while. Some of our advisors were able to make it out to the event and provide their unique perspective on the lab to the i2n members. We also invited some of our speakers to participate and share their viewpoint on the lab.
As always, we covered our fair share of multi-media footage. When you have three or more cameras rolling or shooting in one room, b-roll shots are inevitable.
I noticed that some of the other i2n supported companies were also regulars at our weekly Startup Meetups events. Jonathan, from SparkNet was one of such people that I had seen in the lab before but hadn’t a chance to speak with. Jon really gets us, and we love him for that! Thanks for spreading the word, Jon.
In a region where phrases like ‘startup incubator, ‘business accelerator’ and ‘innovation hub’ don’t get thrown around too often, we’ve become pretty familiar with the looks we get when first explaining the concept. People like Jon really affirm my intrinsic motivation for joining a community of people that have the vision and planning to positively impact our local economic, social and technological spheres.
We’ve been planting lots of seeds and attracting people that resonate with our tireless efforts. Our future growth and innumerable success will not be considered in terms of individual contributions, but by community interest.
Dave Mann is the Man!
Dave Mann: New perspective on Microsoft.
“Microsoft has been viewed as an Evil Empire for a long time, but its not structured like that anymore. And, Microsoft accounts for a huge percentage of the consumer base, so lets not count them out simply because they use a product that so many other people use”
“Microsoft contributes or supports to over 3000 open source projects, Im not gonna walk because of their reputation 20 years ago because that was 20 years ago”
“The interesting thing is that back in the day when IBM was the big evil empire company, Apple made that commercial that showed the miserable IBM workers who all looked the same and had that big hammer being thrown into the main computer, well look how people line up and walk in step for iphones now! The idea is that there is always a ‘big bad wolf.”.
Moving from consulting to product-centered business model
“Consulting is a young persons’ game, and Im getting older (and wiser). I can’t do it forever. So, I need to start transitioning my consulting company to a more product-centered model. The problem is that consulting is quick money, easy money and its hard to say no to quick money”
“Rather than investing all my time and energy in one product that could put me in the poor house if it fails, I’d like to grow a company around a number of different products and spread out my investments (like an incubator!)”
“My short term goals change, almost daily, because things happen and I inevitably a have to shift things around. When my basement flooded, I couldn’t say to my wife “Sorry hun, I have to finish this code”. Thats not realistic! So have a plan, have a schedule and realize its going to change. Tech changes so fast, you have to be able to roll with the punches”
Sophisticated Wild Ass Guess (S.W.A.G.)
Dave projected how many users rely on Office and other Microsoft products with a metric that he called a WAG (Wild Ass Guess). One of our regulars, Mike, pointed that Dave’s assertion was a very sophisticated wild ass guess, which we noticed resulted in a fairly trendy acronym S.W.A.G., coincidence? We think not!
One Last Piece of Advice
“Once you learn your first programming language, it is much easier to learn the next one. The tricky part is to pick the right product for the right problem. JavaScript is a great first language because its generally more forgiving than other languages”